The importance of managing grazing as we get into Summer

The first three weeks, though not necessarily unpleasant, were just draped in a coldness that left the grass with purple tips and put the brakes on growth.

This year we put cows out around the April 7. As I have said before, we generally need to get them out before it looks sensible to do so. And, so it was this year. For the first fortnight ground conditions were decidedly tender. At that time, they were only out during the day, and they only got access to one day’s allocation of grass and were not allowed to roam back across yesterday’s patch.

By doing that we managed to minimise the footprints while making a decent start to getting round the grazing platform. If we hadn’t done that, and had waited till ground conditions were better, the grass would have been way ahead of us and we would have struggled to catch up with it and get the whole grazing area down to sensible covers.

Cold weather

The cold weather has in some ways actually made the grass a bit easier managed this year. It wouldn’t be unusual for things to be growing at a colossal rate in early May, and we would be scratching our heads wondering how many grazing paddocks to cut and stick in the silage pit with first cut. There hasn’t really been a spike in growth so far this year so there hasn’t been sufficient surplus grass to merit taking out paddocks.

That said, if we get a nice bit of heat things might change quickly. Grass naturally wants to head at this time of year and some of the covers of grass in paddocks cows are going in to now are just strong enough. So far, the girls are doing a decent job of tidying them up, but you do forsake a bit of milk asking them to tidy these paddocks up.

To address this, we have already started pre-mowing in front of them. We just mow a day’s worth of grass in front of them and move the electric fence as normal. If the weather is good, like it is just now, it can work very well. The cows are not being asked to pull away at course grass and can devour a huge bellyful of grass very quickly. It is an extra job, and a bit of diesel, but it sets the fields up well for the rest of the grazing season.

One thing that has especially pleased me is how well our replacement heifer calves have taken to grazing this year. These are all October born, and at that age it can sometimes be tricky to get them to do a decent job of tidying grass up.

Replacement heifers

At turnout we introduce them to grass gently by running them out during the day and back in to their house at night for the first week. But, once they are at grass full time they won’t see a bite of concentrate again for 18 months, until they are about to enter the milking herd.

So, to get the live weight gains we need, it is important we keep good quality grass in front of them all the time. We are trying to work them on a proper rotational grazing system and they have seven paddocks set up to work round with two or three days in each. They seem to have gone out this year and not skipped a beat. They just got their heads down and are doing a fair job.

We did our first cut silage the weekend of Ayr Show – May 9 and 10 – a cool but dry couple of days. The current plan is to go for four slightly heavier cuts instead of the five cuts we have done the last couple of years. The rationale for that is to try to save a bit on contractor and diesel costs. That might turn out false economy if we end up feeding more concentrates this winter to supplement more mature silages.

That said, I was quite happy with the cut we made. It was heavier than I expected considering the slower weather. There maybe was a bit more stemminess about it than previous years, but there was no sign of a shot head of grass anywhere and there was a lovely stickiness to the hand when you picked up a handful of the chopped grass.

We will likely be feeding a bit more concentrates this winter anyway, as we have not pitted any brewers grains under the silage this year. The price I was quoted for it this year I felt was just not viable. We did though put four loads of tatties under the silage. They are not hard to come by at the moment.

If we don’t put draff under our other silage pit, this will be the first year for a long time we haven’t fed any. I have been known to get a bit of stick in our discussion groups for being a ‘draff junkie’, so it will be interesting to see how we get on feeding cows this winter if we do go cold turkey on this.

Discussion groups

Talking about discussion groups, we had our annual groups conference again at the end of April. It is great to get everyone together again and our four speakers gave us plenty of food for thought.

We covered dairy cow genetics, relationships with your banker, business collaborations to name just a few. Just as valuable as anything we gleaned from the speakers was the chat and debate around the room, and likewise, the banter in the evening.

On a similar vein, I am just back from five days in Ireland at the Nuffield Triennial. As the name suggests, this is a three yearly get together of Nuffields from all corners of the globe. The organisers did a fantastic job and gave us a fascinating insight into Irish agriculture and culture, starting in the North around Belfast and finishing down at Cork.

It was rather a busman’s holiday for me, as there was more than a bit of a bias towards dairy visits. In fact, some of the non-dairy delegates reckoned they were dairy experts by the finish. Funnily enough that suited me fine, and it reflects how dynamic and important dairy farming and the dairy cooperatives are within Irish agriculture.

This is the first Triennial I have been to and it won’t be the last. It was great to meet up with old and new faces of all ages, from all countries and sectors. The craic was tremendous and the chat was always insightful and positive.

We had a one-day conference near Dublin, which looked at bigger picture issues around farming and food security. Speakers included Phil Hogan, the former Irish EU commissioner, as well as academics, economists, industry representatives and leading Irish farmers. This was a bit of an eye-opener, in that it brought home how much smaller and insular our perspective in the UK has become since Brexit.

One speaker was a particular stand-out – David McWilliams, an economist, author and podcaster. He was not a typical economist and was the most entertaining and captivating speaker I have heard in a long time.

He helped make sense of the current turmoil affecting the world by framing it in a historical perspective. History has a habit of repeating itself and he described precedents to where we are now. He demonstrated how political and social changes ebb and flow over decades, and how superpowers can exert, but also lose their influence.

It was really powerful to have someone make you stop and think a bit differently, step back and see the bigger picture, and maybe be better at seeing other folks’ perspectives. In an increasingly polarised and intolerant world, that is something we could do with a lot more of.